


Remains

by entanglednow



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Blood, Disturbing Themes, Dreaming, Gen, Mild Gore, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Remains</i> is such an awful word to describe a person</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remains

It always starts the same way. Joe never registers it as it happens, never remembers that it's happened before. That's the nature of a dream after all. But it always starts in the hallway.

He's nowhere before he's there, and then he's standing, leaning slightly forward, facing the double doors at the end. The hallway is white, flawless, sterile white, and unnaturally long. There are bright lights set into the ceiling, repeating every ten feet and he throws no shadow when he walks. He thinks that's part of it, the contrast. Because the white doors at the end open to release an ankle-deep wash of dirty, pink-red water, clots of blood and viscera scattered, tumbling and spinning where it's deeper.

He steps back, he always steps back, but the water curls around his shoes anyway, immediately cold through the leather, and it clings, it clings in a way that water doesn't but blood always does. It pulls him in before he's ready, paints him before he has any choices to make, shoes dripping, trouser cuffs wet, and he stops there, stops there and clenches like he knows what comes next.

He keeps moving, because he has no choice. He isn't sure how he manages, how he gets from outside to inside, clean to stagnant and ripe. But his own feet take him there.

There's only one thing in the room beyond, but even if there wasn't, even if the room was packed with every piece of nameless rubbish it wouldn't matter. Because there's a body hanging in the centre of the room, hauled up by its arms, though he's not sure how what's left of the wrists manages to support the weight of it. At first glance it's simply a mess of discordant shades of red, sliding back and forth between person and crime scene. Between recognisable as something human, and as a jumble of pieces that could never make up a person. Even now, even after everything he's seen, Joe's still not certain how people do this. How people turn other people, living people, into this.

He stops because he has to.

He's not alone any more, he doesn't see any of them at first but he knows they're there. He can smell Riley's perfume, can hear the distant mutter of Ed, on some endless spiel that doesn't matter, about someone long dead. He can hear the squeak of Kent's ill-fitting shoes, and the sound of Mansell breathing through his nose. The way Miles's coat makes the faintest sound when he shifts, to stand in a more comfortable position.

None of it matters except the hanging man - though Joe isn't entirely certain that it is a man, the body is too mutilated to tell for sure, pieces of skin simply sliced away, as if in a frenzy of destruction, the white of bone shows through, unnaturally colourless under the splash and thickening of blood. Too much has been removed to know for sure. There are stitches, thick and dark, down the centre of the chest, some of them snapped clean through, others pulled tight, so what's left of the skin puckers and tears. There are still clumps of dark hair, scraps of clothing - among things which are not clothing.

He wants to turn away, before his eyes make sense of it, something human in him rebelling at the sight of so much destruction.

Joe knows, though he's never sure how he knows. That what he's looking for is inside the body, that it's nestled, placed carefully inside this victim. No one else can reach it. That's the other thing he knows for sure. No one else can reach in and grasp it but him.

Miles is the only one who speaks in the dream, Miles who's made a skill of being gentle and blunt at the same time. His edges have been worn and sanded to fit him, to fit all of this, some of them worn smooth, some of them cracked and crumbled into brittle, jagged peaks. Miles strides across the room like he has no fear, red curling up his grey trousers, spattering droplets as high as his waist. A sudden, excitable splash of gore that makes Joe want to look away - but it's a dream so he can't. He never can. His dreams always make him _look_.

"You can't afford to be squeamish, there are lives at stake."

"I know," Joe wants that to be firm, but he sounds harried, he sounds winded. He knows it's true, he _knows_. But his hands are still in his pockets, pressing down, fisted hard enough to hurt. "I know, just give me a minute." A minute, an hour, an eternity. Any stretch of time at all wouldn't be enough. Because the picture of him pushing his hand into the gritty, gaping wound gets no closer, no clearer.

Miles gives him time though, he stands, silent and watchful in the gentle flow of blood and flesh, watching him, because he knows too much of what haunts him, all of the ways he has to be shored up, to be managed.

His first step forward is out of frustration, and it takes almost everything he has, the way the water makes a slow, hollow splash. The way the smell of death and insides is impossibly closer, like it's touching him. He almost steps back then, almost splashes back through the contaminated water.

"You can do this, you know you can do this," Miles says quietly.

He can't, it's the only thing he knows for certain. The body is huge and oppressive, and the smell is incredible, even holding a hand over his mouth and nose does nothing. He has no gloves, and there are maggots already curling in the red-brown flesh. Where the body is rotting as he watches, sagging where it hangs, beginning its slow slide towards the floor.

"I can't," he says thickly. He shakes his head, feels numb and cold and _too close_. He wants to recoil, twist in on himself and be somewhere - anywhere else.

But somehow he moves closer, almost against his will, watching his own hand lift with a sort of compelled horror. His body forcing him where his mind can't go, and he watches his fingers slide in, between the broken stitches. He watches himself shake and twitch, pushing flesh aside and working his way deeper. He's searching, taking short, shattered breaths that only serve to make him feel nauseous and too light. Trying to find something, even though he doesn't know what he's looking for, trying to find something alive among the dead. but there's nothing there, there's nothing inside the body but blood and organs. He takes a breath and pushes deeper, watches blood curl over his wrist, soak into the cuff of his shirt. The world goes grey at the edges, narrow and sharp and loud all at once.

_I can't do this. Don't make me_.

But there's nothing there, there's nothing to be found. There's no life left. He could sink in to the wrist, he could force his whole arm, squeeze his way under ribs and spine until he was all the way inside it -

His eyes are open suddenly, staring at his own ceiling, the sheets have slipped down and he's freezing, shaking with it, but he forces himself to sit up, to shove everything away from him. He wants to pull his hands down his face but he can't, he can't touch himself yet.

He may be awake, but part of him is still there, still touching cold, dead organs, slippery-smooth and flesh-slick. He's still pushing, feeling blood well between his fingers, smelling like violence and insides. He can't move any further away from his own limbs, he wants to gag but he bites down on it, sweaty and shaky, sat cold on the end of the bed. Other people, other people can leave things alone, other people can take a step back. He wonders if it feels as real to them. If it cripples them, or if they already have armour, if there's a way they can ignore the way it clings.

Real life is heavier, and it feels more real than any dream, even the worst, even the ones that get inside you and stay there until dawn. Joe's felt it, he feels it every time they're called to another murder, another person turned into bloody remains. _Remains_. That's such an awful word to describe a person. What's left of a person. Everything important, everything functional, stripped away.

He pushes himself off the bed, heads for the bathroom, doesn't touch the wall or the door, or the door handle. He can't take the thought of scrubbing everything down before the sun's even up.

The bathroom door is shut, but the line of light at the bottom tells him the light's on inside. Even though he lives alone, has always lived alone. It's enough to still him in his tracks, to leave him staring, helplessly.

His pale, cold hands clench slowly into fists when the light goes pink, then red. When water appears at the bottom of the door, streaming across wood and spilling outwards, into the pale edge of the carpet, soaking it bright and thick.


End file.
